Fanny Bay Waterworks District Upgrades and Aquifer Monitoring

Description:Over the last 15 years, the Fanny Bay Waterworks district water system has undergone several major changes. The most recent is the monitoring of the aquifer and system pressure. It started with the addition of an 110,000 imperial gallon tank on the upper western border our district and the new water distribution pipe system. Our chlorination system became famous for what not to do in the teaching annals. We cleaned up the chlorine system giving it its own house. We then tore out all the electrical from the power pole to the pumps and started all over again. In order to reduce our escalating operator costs we automate the system using three PLC's. Initially, we used pressure as the prime indicator for filling the tank but later we went to limit switches mounted in the top of the tank. Our last addition was to install three sensors to monitor the well depth and aquifer behaviour, well temperature and system pressure. Accompanying these latter additions were data loggers, a laptop computer, software for data analysis and connection to the internet. Our operator, who once lived in his house near the storage tank, now lives in Courtenay 25 km away and can monitor the water system health on his iPhone.
This paper is about the first summer of monitoring our aquifer and system description on a budget.